I'm using Ubuntu Maverick on my main PC, and I got the system configured just the way I like it (yay!) a long time ago. Everything was well until the recent Wine releases which are apparently made to use ALSA 1.0.24 which is sadly not available for Maverick. This means I lost all sound in Wine, which is not nearly as funny as it should be!

I found this tutorial on how to build ALSA 1.0.24, but I'm not sure if the procedure is "safe enough" to use. By "safe enough" I mean "will it mess up my system beyond repair". Is the big red-lettered disclaimer in the beginning of the article justified? How dangerous is the procedure described? Should I risk it and give it a shot or just bite the bullet and install Mint from scratch, like I did on my laptop (successfully, it seems)?

UPDATE:

After following Gilles' advice below about trying to install ALSA binaries for Lucid, I had a bit of a problem with sound being blocked for other apps when playing something in Flash. To fix this, I did the following:

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This warning is grossly exaggerated. The main problem with it is that it will install files under /lib and/usr, overwriting some files provided by the Ubuntu distribution. This means that it won't be easy to uninstall or upgrade your manually installed drivers. I recommend specifying ./configure --prefix=/usr/local when compiling the library and the utilities, so that everything you install that isn't part of the distribution is under /usr/local. For the drivers, you don't have this luxury: they must be under /lib/modules, but fortunately these aren't so critical.

Nonetheless, I suggest carefully reviewing and keeping note of what files are being installed. Run make -n install to see this, before running sudo make install. Alternatively, install the stow package, create a directory /usr/local/stow/alsa-1.0.24, give yourself write permission on it (e.g. sudo chown hannibal /usr/local/stow/alsa-1.0.24), specify ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/stow/alsa-1.0.24, and run make install without sudo. Then run sudo stow alsa-1.0.24 from the /usr/local/stow directory. Finally, symlink the modules under /usr/local/stow/alsa-1.0.24/lib/modules to the corresponding directory under /lib/modules and run sudo depmod -a.

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer! Can you tell me how to try the binary packages for Lucid? Are .deb files installable if they are meant for a different version of Ubuntu?
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dr Hannibal LecterJan 4 '12 at 14:00

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@drHannibalLecter See the generic PPA installation instructions‌​. Packages don't contain an indication of what version of Ubuntu they're for; you can install them on another version if the dependencies are met (I haven't checked whether this is the case here).
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GillesJan 4 '12 at 21:01

It worked! I simply added the Lucid PPA and installed all the updates. I had no idea you can add PPAs for other versions.. Thanks, you saved my bacon! :)
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dr Hannibal LecterJan 6 '12 at 17:52